Statement of Solidarity with scholar- activist Kancha Ilaiah

The following is a statement in support of scholar-activist Prof Kancha Ilaiah, who is under attack from a number of Hindutva organizations and against whom the Hyderabad police recently registered a case for ‘hurting religious sentiments’. The tendency to resort to police cases, in order to stifle any criticism of Hindutva and the regime has assumed menacing proportions, against which we stand firmly with Kancha Ilaiah.

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the continued harassment, attacks on and intimidation of Prof Kancha Ilaiah at the hands of various Brahmin / brahminical organizations, police and the state administration of Telengana for his political writings and views. We also hold responsible for this intimidatory environment, the Telugu media that reportedly published distorted and misleading reports of Prof Ilaiah’s speech.

While speaking at the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, a wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on May 14, 2016, at Vijayawada (Amaravathi), Prof. Ilaiah had said: “The Brahmins as a community have not contributed anything to the production process of the Indian nation. Even now their role in the basic human survival based productive activity is not there. On the contrary, they constructed a spiritual theory that repeatedly tells people that production is pollution.”

On the basis of this statement, the Brahmin Associations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana not only burnt his effigies and issued statements of condemnation, but a mob landed up at his office and personally threatened him, allegedly under the guidance of IV Krishna Rao, Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Brahmin Corporation. Following this, the Saroornagar police in Hyderabad booked a case against Professor Kancha Ilaiah for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments. The police was acting on the directions of a district court in Ranga Reddy. Last year, a VHP activist filed a complaint against him for his article in a newspaper, titled ‘Devudu Prajasamya Vaadi Kaada’ (“Is God not a democrat?”) after which the Telangana police filed a case against him under Section 153 (A) and Section 295 (A), bowing to pressure from Hindutva organizations. Prof Ilaiah had to move the courts to get a stay order on criminal proceedings against him for merely writing that article.

Prof Ilaiah’s formidable scholarship includes iconoclastic works such as ‘Why I am not a Hindu’, ‘Post-Hindu-India’, ‘Buffalo Nationalismand Untouchable God’ and numerous other writings radically denouncing the caste system in India. It is deeply disturbing to note that a scholar of international repute who has inspired scholars and activists to look at our own history critically, and who relentlessly challenges dominant orthodoxies in the academia, is being targeted by state agencies acting in tandem with Hindutva organizations.

The intimidation of Prof Kancha Ilaiah should be seen as part of the ongoing process of criminalisation of dissent and suppression of freedom of expression which has received a boost under the current government. In this process, the law has repeatedly been turned into a surrogate for Hindutva politics. It is shocking that the Telangana government too has fallen prey to the majoritarian ambience and that its state institutions are backing Hindutva violence.

The politics of Hindutva, while hurting every living being’s dignity and sentiments, continuously claims to be the perpetual and universal victim. Dalits today cannot speak of the indignities and oppression that they have suffered at the hands of the Hindus – even that has become a matter of ‘hurt sentiments’ of dominant groups and castes.

We demand that this intimidation should be stopped and that the police should immediately withdraw police cases against Prof Ilaiah.